Waiting Impatiently

Here's a quick look at where things are at in the garden. I keep hearing of people in our area who are harvesting already - a cucumber, a handful of cherry tomatoes, a green pepper - and I can't help but be jealous that ours just aren't there yet! But, I have to remind myself that:
1) We planted mostly heirlooms, and you can't expect those to be the fastest producers. We are looking for flavor here, and flavor takes time!
2) We have already had radishes, broccoli, peas, several handfuls of delicious bush green beans, and holy-cow-a-lot-of-basil! No, we aren't seeing bumper crops of any of the above except basil, but ...
3)...this is our first year of gardening in this space! And our first year gardening in the ground and not in a square foot garden with made-up soil or in other containers. It is an entirely different animal to have ripped up sod in March, tilled in horse manure compost (with which there were clearly several issues) and then find out that the space isn't nearly as sunny in July as it was back in March.
So, with that in mind, I'm going to just enjoy what we've had and tuck away lots of learning from this practice year.

Pole beans are so fascinating to me. My mom grew scads of bush beans when I was growing up, and they were delicious! But I was curious, what do these pole beans taste like? How can beans grow so differently and still be called by the same name? We don't have flowers on any of ours yet. These are the ones at our main garden, which haven't grown as fast as the ones we planted in my SFG.

A good-sized Brandywine tomato! This particular plant already has 6-7 large green fruits. They are all cat-faced, but that's normal for this heirloom variety. I grew one plant in a pot last summer and I think I only got 3 tomatoes in the whole season. They were the best tomatoes I've ever tasted. This year I have six Brandywines, and each plant already has fruit. I'm excited!

Gardener's Delight tomatoes. These are cherry tomatoes and they are growing like wild, along with Juliets and Sun Golds. Like weeds, I tell you. The vines are already 6 feet tall. I'm going to have to get creative with staking pretty soon. We will probably have a bumper crop as long as I can keep this pest from eating them all now before they ripen!

He's worse than squirrels! He ate 4 green tomatoes the last time I brought him to the garden.

Not the prettiest eggplant blossom that I've seen, but I'm just thankful that this plant has survived to flower. I can't say the same for the other two plants. RIP Black Beauty Eggplants, you were taken too soon.

Watermelon vines. These were slow to take off, probably because the area they are in is more shaded than expected. Ali Baba variety from Baker Creek Heirlooms.

Pumpkin vines! Can't wait for these pie pumpkins this fall! My other squash plants (delicata and some other winter squash) mysteriously disappeared, but the pumpkins seem happy!

This yellow summer squash plant is NOT happy, as something seems to be making a meal of it and my zucchinis. I'm not sure that we will have a crop this summer, though I did finally see a blossom on one of the four plants today. Maybe one will pull through.
I can't wait to take photos of my new cucumber trellises that my Dear Husband Chris and Garden Landowner Chris (different people) put together for me last Sunday. Next time!
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We've got cabin fever!

This heat wave has been keeping me inside pretty much all week, except for two ventures outside for fireworks and for swimming fun and dinner with close friends on the 4th. The other times the kids and I have braved the heat it has either been a walk straight out the door and into the wading pool, or to run to the air conditioned car!

Today the cabin fever was more than I could stand (think: kids were climbing like mountain goats over every piece of furniture) so we trekked over to Glenview and spent our day with every other family from the Northern Suburbs at the Kohl Children's Museum. Think sardines packed in a can, and most of the sardines are jumping or running at full speed trying to expend their pent up energy! Chicagoans just aren't made for 100 degree weather!


We truly did have fun though at the children's museum - there is always more to do than we have time for! I highly recommend a visit if you haven't been before. If you have a child, that is. Otherwise, skip it. Go to the Botanic Gardens instead.



So, what does the garden think of all this heat? The peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumber, squash, pumpkins, watermelons and zucchini are loving it! The broccoli, peas, onions and even the beans not so much. As is to be expected, the pea vines are all fried. The cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and other coles are fine as long as they have enough water. These little peppers are growing like weeds though! Three days ago they were half this size, and I've had to cage several of the pepper plants already.



Our pole beans are growing fast, but wilt in the afternoon sun because the siding on the house is so hot and bright. To help combat the sunburn I've been leaning a screen door up against the frame and it shades the whole area nicely!


How do your plants like the heat?

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pruning tomatoes feels so cruel

Today my big garden chore was pruning our tomato jungle! Tomato plants occupy the biggest bed in our large garden, and are really what I am looking forward to the most about harvest time. We have 30-something plants, and I think I added up 10 different varieties. There are  Brandywine, Jersey Giant, Roma, Early Girl, Juliet, Sun Gold, and Gardener's Delight in the large garden, and Cherokee Purple, Better Boy and San Marzano in my backyard box. I grew most of the plants from seed in trays on top of my piano, and they quickly outgrew the space!

Now they have been living happily in the ground for about six weeks, and to say they are growing like weeds would be an understatement. The weeds don't stand a chance around these tomatoes! They don't even bother trying! Though I have other theories about that...(composted horse manure fertilizer that may have been contaminated with herbicide?) So anyway, today I needed to prune back the crazy tomatoes so the plants stay up off of the ground and just fit better within their rows. With pruning, I tried to follow the rule of picking off all of the plant suckers below the first fruits. Some plants don't have fruit yet, just blossoms, so I just cut off suckers below the first set of blossoms. I figured that was safe, but I'm new to this "killing parts of the plants for the good of the whole," and a little part of me dies with each branch I remove! But I know that they need to be tamed because they're out of control and are going to be impossible to pick if I don't demand some order in the ranks! 

 I'm using stakes for supports this year, because I knew cages wouldn't be big enough. I really didn't know what all of my support options were when I started, but I know now that next year I'm going to stake them with string, something like this. I've been ripping up flannel sheets and tying a figure with pieces of sheets to help the stems not rub too badly against the stakes.

After I pruned and tidied up the rows, I fed the tomatoes with "Tomato-Tone," an organic fertilizer from our local nursery.

"Gardener's delight" variety from Burpee

As I hinted at previously, I suspect that the composted horse manure that we tilled into the beds in March was contaminated with some kind of herbicide. All of my nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants) are suffering from something that causes the leaves to curl and grow deformed. It's bad enough with a few of the plants that I'm not sure that they'll produce anything (2 out of 3 eggplants, 2 out of 12 pepper plants, and probably 3-4 of the 30+ tomatoes). But the rest of the plants seem to be blossoming and setting fruit just fine regardless. Everything is a healthy green color, and several of the tomato plants are as tall as me and loaded with fruit.

The jungle.

Many people have asked me, "What on earth will you do with so many tomatoes? Won't they go bad before you can eat them all?" My hope is that we will have bucket after bucket of tomatoes to preserve into sauces for pasta, soups & pizza, salsas, and maybe even ketchup! You can dry, can, and freeze tomatoes, so we hopefully won't need to buy many, if any, tomatoes during the winter & spring. We eat pretty seasonally at our house, so we won't miss fresh tomatoes in February anyway!

I can't wait to see some color on those adorable little globes! Maybe if we have a bumper crop I'll be able to share the surplus with local friends, and hopefully spread the homegrown bug as well!